Probably in part by
endosymbiosis.
A deep ancestral connection probably exists between
bacteria, cyanobacteria and certain organelles found
in animal and plant cells. These organelles are the
mitochondria, chloroplasts and other plastids. And
endosymbiosis is the key to this connection.
I watch a little unicellular ciliate called
Loxodes magnus
swim through its aquatic world. I watch its plasma
membrane rupture and its cytoplasm ooze out, leaving
a trail of organelles. It is a moment of death. I
watch a Loxodes die.
High-level nuclear radioactive waste remains
biohazardous for very very long times. The
prevailing absence of permanent disposal
facilities shows the biohazard. Conversely,
methane pyrolysis and water electrolysis powered
by solar energy are promising industrial processes
for the production of hydrogen. Hydrogen is the
most sustainable and clean energy currency in the
long term.
Oh Artemis, as goddess of the Moon and all wild things,
how could you have known about endosymbiosis,
cyanobacteria, green algae, and the little Loxodes ciliate? But Artemis
is coming, Artemis, to show you the Moon and Jupiter and
the myriad wonders of the world which Science has now
shown.
I'm sitting at a restaurant table. Four men arrive.
They sit down and begin to talk. I begin to eavesdrop.
And what I hear is prejudice, profanity and animal
abuse, all in one. I leave. We have a long way to go.
Our ethical contours lead us away from regarding
fellow animals as little more than living engines
of mass-production. They are much more than that.
Many animals are sentient, feel pain, have emotions
and desires. Sometimes just like us.
What we choose to eat matters. It matters to
Earth's
environment, and it matters to the animals
we confine, process, kill, and whose bodies
we eat. Herein I explore the data.
I propose four prerequisites for the emergence of
complexity in organic systems, and hence for
a natural and spontaneous abiogenesis to have
occurred on
Earth.
They are:
1. a source of low entropy;
2. autonomous agents for interaction;
3. persistent non-equilibrium; and
4. time and space.
There is a sadness in the world. Behind steel
door, iron cage, and wire fence it sits and it
stands, waiting for the inevitable. A sentience
subdued, where nothing remains but helplessness to
learn.
Ad hoc exceptions in the genetic
code; ancestral vestiges in our Chromosome 2;
the unspectacular character of the human genome;
the ad hoc nature of gene expression; and so on.
Humans are not endowed with some special Designer
essence. At least not within our DNA.
Spiking atmospheric greenhouse
gas concentrations. Abuse of
Earth's
fish, chickens,
pigs and cows.
Trans-Atlantic slave trade abetted by
Confederate Protestant Christianity. Two thousand years of anti-semitism
supported by a religious bigotry. Ecosystemdestruction
and species biodiversity loss. Sixth mass-extinction
event underway. Growing human
inequality.
I am ready for exigent change.
Carbon dioxide (CO2),
methane (CH4)
and nitrous oxide (N2O)
are greenhouse gases. Their concentrations in the
atmosphere have been increasing rapidly since
1750 ce,
the beginning of the industrial era. A most
important graph, ever, shows this.
